Sauce Variety?

[SaberTooth]

Can the board please give me some recommendations regarding your favorite varieties for spaghetti sauce?

[piegirl]

My favorite for sauce is Martino's Roma. Fresh - I didn't particularly care for the taste but sauce is pure heaven. After cooking for awhile, they just seem to melt into sauce. Plants seem pretty disease free and heavy producers, but I grew 10 plants last year just to make sure I would have a good supply of sauce. piegirl

[carolyn137]

Many of us prefer to use just dense fleshed varieties with few seeds that have great taste b'c most paste varieties aren't known for great taste.

But here's some that I've grown and think well of as do quite a few others:

Heidi
Mama Leone
Martino's Roma
Sarnowski Polish Plum
Opalka
Howard German

.....to name a few

And I prefer those over any Costolutos or San Marzanos I've ever grown and many other paste varieties such as Borgo Cellano, etc

.

[camochef]

We prefer the taste of sauces made from what I call slicers not paste tomatoes. Our favorite over the years has been Brandywine-Cowlicks, or a blend of tomatoes like Cowlicks and Cherokee Purple, or Cowlicks and Caspian Pink.
We've also made many quarts of yellow sauce like Lillian's Yellow Heirloom, but the minute you add spices like Ancho Chili powder it turns red anyway. So if you like a nice yellow mediterainean style sauce watch what spices you use in it.
Generally speaking, I advise people to use whatever their favorite tomato to eat is! Just don't burn it trying to cook it down...then it's all trash.
Enjoy!
Camo

[eyolf]

I love tomatoes and tomato sauces, but my taste buds aren't really up to discerning subtle differences between many varieties in sauces.

At our house we tend to use varieties that have high solids content, mostly because they take less time to cook down. Obviously, there are a few varieties that seem a little less sweet, in sauces or on the plate, but they don't seem to find a home here anyway.

Last year it was Amish Paste, Oroma, and a variety I have called "Canning Tomatoe": seeds from fruit my mom purchased at a farm stand, looks suspiciously like New Yorker.
This year it will likely be Belle Star, Martin's Super Roma, and maybe some Riesentraubes.

WE have a Spremy tomatoe machine...really makes it an easy process!

Edit:
In my grandmother's day, "tomatoe sauce" was just canned tomatoes. My paternal grandmother served dishes of canned tomatoes two or 3 times a week during the depression. Family liked them, she canned lots of them, and I'm sure even with imprecise home processing, some vitamins, especially vit C was retained. My dad insisted on them too, and mom even put a few 1/2 pints up every year for dad to take in his lunch box when he wasn't going to come home for lunch. WE ate them a lot for Sunday breakfast during the winter and spring when fresh fruit was expensive.

For that kind of "tomatoe sauce", I prefer the big, lumpy old beefsteaks. I don't care about hard cores, it just gives more "texture" to the product!

[TZ-OH6]

I've followed this type of thread on a couple of forums over the years and Costoluto Genovese is always mentioned as a variety that makes an outstanding sauce on its own (better when cooked).

Like most around here I put whatever ripe "fresh eating" varieties I have on hand into the pot (usually separated by color), but my favorite taste combination of all time was a "white" sauce made with Great White plus a smaller percentage of Limmony. Great White is the usual mild flavor or most whites and Limmony has an intense candy-tart flavor (like SweetTarts candy) and the combination was out of the ordinary and outstanding. Limmony would probably do that to any sauce.

I do not use Green when Ripe or Bicolors in sauce because they tend to be watery, and the fruity flavor is not that great in a spaghetti sauce (and down right unpleasant in chili).

[tjg911]

one of the worst tomatoes i ever tasted (fresh/raw) is Bisignano #2. i grew it in 2004. these tomatoes are red, round, about 5-6 oz (?), tasteless and HARD - crunchy like celery! if i threw one of these at you and hit you in the head you'd be hurting.

they were inedible imo but then i decided to cook them for sauce. they made the best sauce of any tomato i ever cooked and cooked down in about 20 minutes! for the record, i do not like sauce from fresh tomatoes but i did like the sauce from Bisignano #2. it would be the tomato i'd grow if i wanted to make sauce because it cooks down to a nice thick sauce and you can add whatever for flavor. i never grew cg so i can't compare it to that one.

tom

[nctomatoman]

Darrel, what you had wasn't Bisignano #2! They should be shaped from oblate to long paste - quite variable - and 6 up to 10 ounces, succulent, delicious - another case of issues with seed purity/unplanned crossing! It is one of my favorite tomatoes.

This year one of my best performers has been Speckled Roman - in a very ppor year, it has been my best producer, and is perfect for sauce.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by nctomatoman

Darrel, what you had wasn't Bisignano #2! They should be shaped from oblate to long paste - quite variable - and 6 up to 10 ounces, succulent, delicious - another case of issues with seed purity/unplanned crossing! It is one of my favorite tomatoes.

This year one of my best performers has been Speckled Roman - in a very ppor year, it has been my best producer, and is perfect for sauce.

Craig, that was Tom who talked about Bisignano #2, not Darrel.

tgs is Tom who introduced all of us to the wonderful variety Prue.

[nctomatoman]

Whoops...was reading too fast! (been a busy day)....Tom, you don't have the real Bisignano #2 (as I said above). Prue in comparison is more uniform in shape - B #2 is one of those odd varieties that has different shapes on the same plant. I wouldn't want to have to pick between them for flavor - both excellent.

[ddsack]

In my grandmother's day, "tomatoe sauce" was just canned tomatoes.

Ha! Yes, I was a bit confused when my mother-in-law (now deceased) talked about peach sauce, when she actually meant canned peaches in syrup! Must be an old time regional usage.

[puzzley]

We just finished a couple of gallons of outstanding pasta sauce from our Opalkas. I've never seen such a meaty tomato, and the taste is excellent!

[fortyonenorth]

I'm eager to try some of the varieties mentioned above - e.g. Prue, Sarnowski, etc., but a few years ago we made sauce from 100% Black Plum - just because we had so many that were ripe. Since then, we've been trying to make another sauce that compares. So far, nothing measures up - at least for our taste buds. Killer salsa tomato, too.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

I'm eager to try some of the varieties mentioned above - e.g. Prue, Sarnowski, etc., but a few years ago we made sauce from 100% Black Plum - just because we had so many that were ripe. Since then, we've been trying to make another sauce that compares. So far, nothing measures up - at least for our taste buds. Killer salsa tomato, too.

If you're looking at the list I gave you can get all of them at Sandhill Preservation in the apste tomato section, except for Mama Leone and Howard German which you can get at TGS. Prue you can also get at Sandhill but it' not in the paste section, per Tom's request ( he's the originator of Prue), but in the regular red section.

Since some have had some problems with Sandhill's Opalka you might consider getting that one at TGS.

When you look at the paste section at Sandhill I'm sure you'll be surprised at all the many varieties listed there, so take a good look and think pasta.

[ssi912]

i grew canestrino di lucca this year for the first time. never ate one. gave all 100 or so away. one of the ladies i gave some to, that happens to be a chef, made some sauce with them. says it was the best sauce tomato she has ever used. she grew san marzano this year. said they were o.k. she also sun dried some and said there were excellent as well. i grew them in my community plot and the folks that picked them were community gardeners. all have requested plants for next year. saved some seed from a few. dont know the germintation rate or how true. havent started any. i am willing to send some sase or trade for something if any one wants try any. the seed was fermented though. they performed extremely well in high heat and drought. 2 plants, over 100 fruit. fruit looks like little pears, or baskets some folks say. pm me if interested in seed.